Apostrophe: Tell Me Why
by Quil Explodes
Summary: Various characters. No particular order.
1. Severus

**Severus**

Tell me why.

Tell me why you made me cry. I don't think you understand, _really_, Lily, you don't understand the agony.

Will you ever? I dread to think that you will - because of course, what I wish, blindly wish, is that you'd love me, and I'd never let you feel like this.

It's not only what you think - what you think in my head. This is everything, but you are the last straw.

I thought I knew the meaning of rejection. It was newly defined, its inherent meaning made ridiculously dry.

Will you ever know? Who could say no to _you_?


	2. Albus

**Albus**

Tell me why life is getting shorter, Minerva. Quicker and quicker. It races towards the end, the finishing touches oblique. You say it's the nature of reality.

I say it's never my nature to be calm and composed when I feel like screaming and really, Minerva, could you imagine that? I feign control and it comforts people. Little, innocent, watching, trusting people.

I'm dying, Minerva. You're greying, Minerva.

I'm the best wizard of the age for nothing.

Because I'm still going to die, and the difference I've made will come to nothing.

We delude ourselves to think that there's meaning, to think that there's reason. We think it's love and happiness: that fleeting, fleeting break from life.

I don't believe it.


	3. Ginny

**Ginny**

Tell me why you left.

I need you, Harry. More than anything.

They think I'm strong and I like to let them think that but I can't break down to anyone. I want you back. I want you here. I want you helping with the DA and helping Neville. I know he's up to it but I miss you.

Please come back.

I'll wait for you.

I'll fight with you. Side by side. Your life in flashes of scarlet and your glasses crooked.

I'll wait with you.

I'll fight for you. Ahead, behind.

Haven't I shown you that I know what forever means?

I know loss is immanent. You can't ask for anything more.


	4. Frank

**Frank**

Tell me why time is passing so fast, Alice.

I don't want the real world. I love Hogwarts almost as much as I love you. I love being able to pop down to the kitchens impulsively and I love living just one tiny dormitory away from you and I love kissing you when we come in windswept in winter and the Great Hall is warm and chilly at the same time and I love your red cheeks and I love I love I love...

Tell me why time is being eaten up so fast, Alice. Eaten alive. It crawls squirming into time's evil jaw and it eats and eats and eats itself and crawls in circles and I like the thought of circular time, really, because then nothing really ends and time is not passing. But it is.

Because no one else thinks so.

I'm scared, Alice.

Tell me what to do.


	5. Colin

**Colin**

Tell me why we had to grow up so fast.

Why we're hardly kids anymore, more hardened warriors who think the Cruciatus isn't the worst they've got.

Why Neville's got great big slashes on his cheeks.

Why Dennis doesn't laugh anymore.

Why first years are chained to walls. Why people like Michael are tortured for saving them.

I believed in you once, I remember-vaguely. I believed, somehow, that everything would always be alright. That I'd kiss a girl and it would be fate. That I'd marry and have kids and grow up and be just as happy as I was when I was five. That life would be life, and never disillusioned.

I still believed when I got my Hogwarts letter. I believed that I'd kiss a girl and she'd be wearing robes and it would be fate. That my kids would grow up to be wizards and witches. I believed more because I was happy. You can't say magic crushed my imagination. Crushed my belief.

I believed when Neville said it was war. I believed when I realized it was. Because magical war is always better than Muggle war. Better spells than guns. Better curses than knives. Because there's always good and bad here, cleanly in black and white. Always good and bad, sharp as spilled blood.

But the blood marred the silver and now my camera's broken. The last picture I took was of Hannah Abbott, fast asleep, hair mussed and eyes flickering and lips in a tight frown.

I believed even when I had all the reason not to, but seeing the little first year and then Michael chained up, seeing Dennis Cruciated, seeing McGonnagall helpless, seeing Snape evil, seeing Neville cry-that did it. Seeing what this is doing to these people I love-that did it.

I'm sorry.

But you won't tell me anything, so I can't believe.


	6. Narcissa

**Narcissa**

Tell me why I must kill children.

I'm sorry, but the line is drawn. Lucius, you ask too much. You ask me to follow a man who tells me to kill children.

Tell me why we aren't allowed do anything but kill them. They have blood as pure as Draco's. There are spells for the minds, if nothing else. So accomplished. You must be able to think of something.

They are beautiful. Even the red-heads. How can you ask me to kill them? Beautiful children. Learning. Growing. I must beg for them because their families are traitor and yes, they die rightly, but they are children.

The little blond boy was just struck by green light. He must have been fifteen. Sixteen. Younger than our own son. Struck in the back. They can't even kill him to his face.

How can you ask me to kill them?

There is so much beauty in the world, still. Not everything has to be death.

Please don't ask me to kill them.


	7. Luna

**Luna**

Tell me why you curl in the corner instead of talking with me about life and colors.

I try, I do. You look like a grey-brown pile of rags, barely breathing, mind fraying at the seams. I fear for a moment about my friends, back at school, and their minds, their fraying minds.

I would hear if Neville's gone insane. Bellatrix would come and she'd gloat with her evil laughter. Neville's strong. Like his parents. But more likely than not, the cause of Neville losing his mind will not be his own pain. He could never stand to watch. It would be a first year, or Ernie, or Hannah.

But Mr. Ollivander, why can't you smile? After all, we're alive, and at least we're not alone. I wish I had my wand-not to escape, but to bring some color into this dark cell. Cheer you up.

I thought that maybe if we worked together we could find something. If not an escape, then something worth living for. I know, but you need to understand.

Thank you for being here with me, even though you don't talk much. You're great company, and I do make you smile sometimes. Daddy tells me I'm a little like hope, and I hope I'm something like that for you.


	8. Hannah

**Hannah**

Tell me why you're bleeding so much. It won't _stop_. _Please_, Neville, it won't _stop_. _You'll die_.

Merlin.

You'll die.

Tell me how to stop it.

I'm not Ravenclaw, I'm not smart. I'm loyal to the death and all that and you're going to _die_ and MerlinMerlinMerlin what am I doing?

Why can't my magic listen to sheer desperation?

Stop bleeding.

Please, Neville.

Michael. Terry. Padma. Anthony-_Merlin_ getoverhereandstophisblood. Bloody Ravenclaws use your magic use your brains use it and help him!

You won't stop bleeding. Terry's sweating with exertion and he's tried _everything_. Michael's suggesting charms in languages I never knew existed. Padma's meditating, concentrating, and Anthony's thinking...the Ravenclaw Common Room's stained with your blood, crimson _death_.

Please, Neville.

Stop.

I love you.

_You're dying_.

Don't.


	9. James

**James**

Tell me why I was betrayed.

What have I done wrong? I can't think of anything - look, Peter was always _laughing_, you bloody lunatic!

He loved us. At least I thought he did.

So tell me what you did to bring him over to your side. What did you promise him? Answers to questions that I could never give? Power? No. Those questions had no answers. He was never one for power. Always preferred the shadows. Or maybe he didn't?

I have a split second. I don't want to think of Peter. Really. _Merlin_, Sirius is going to be in a right _mess_.

So tell me why I was betrayed. You can still kill me. I know you will. This puzzle of Peter is a bit too overwhelming now to think of dying.

Who _dies_ at a time like this, honestly?

I can't even find it in me to be sad and regretful. Angry as hell, yes, because Lily and Harry are just upstairs. Pissed off, yeah. But I really just want to solve this. Want an answer. Don't I deserve it - about to die? Anyways, it's not like I could tell anyone your precious secrets.

So come on, let your wand down, keep your creepy cloak on, have a seat, want some tea? And tell me why I was betrayed.

Then you can kill me. 


	10. Parvati

**Parvati**

Tell me why I am alone.

See? I don't even have anyone to talk to. Anyone to ask. No one to call out to in the middle of fever-delusions. It's not the memories, so much, it's the big gaping hole that's worse than only a mother's death.

No one.

I try to hold off the self-pity, because no one ever likes that. But who am I trying to impress? They're all dead, gone, into wisps of smoke that tear and tug at my heart in the lonely hours of the night and come back all the stronger whenever they seemed to have abated. All gone, farther than the stars, un-mappable except for the shadows they left in my soul.

So alone.

Padma. Mother. Father.

How do I live?

I'd rather have lost both my legs, all my arms, cut off my hair, blind me, deafen, mutilate. I'd rather...regret. Rather...die. Rather...wish. Rather...hope.

Lavender. Where is she, under full-moon light, human or taken by blood-lust I will never understand?

Neville and Hannah are laughing now, under full-moon light. Loving now, when...

Harry and Ginny are loving now. Laughing, under full-moon glow. When...

Padma. Mother. Father.

Love? What, it's just death. Nothing permanent. I'm soon to join. But something wants to hold on and I hate this thing that lets me hold on.

What, it's just life. Live a little, with so much loss. But I feel dead already, with a body that frustrates me with its strength and flexibility and strong hold on life.

Colin's face is etched forever in my memory. Stark-white, brave to the last. Look where this Gryffindor bravery has gotten me. Is it different than Colin's?

How can they forget the loss? Laugh when our comrades and friends, brothers and sisters, everyone who will ever mean anything are still, are eternally lying bloody and broken on cold stone floors and all you want to do is scream and cry and wail and grieve. How can they feel their hearts full and content, when lives are empty and when so many are immobile and torn apart - battered and broken and cut and tortured and writhing in fiery agony, burning in everlasting fire, her screams echoing through high-ceilinged corridors mingling eerily with the clanking of the suits of armor, dented and in pieces, shells of the castle's last protectors. While rivers of blood flow around boots, when you see fingers flung to impossible heights and recognize Mandy's rings and don't feel the cold dread of recognition until later, until bodies are lined up and sorrows counted and those who survived are white as the dead and tears pour down their cheeks easier than anything they've ever done.

And at memorials and celebrations the sentences of remembrance go on and on and mean nothing because they weren't there, they didn't see shattered hearts and shattered bones and murdered children. Eventually grieving gives way to celebration and there's alcohol and people lose themselves in laughter and bodies and insatiable need. I find Dean, because I'm not the only one who can't cope with this raucous, raw joy - Dean who's lost and scared and willing to give anything with trembling fingers and lips and I let him pretend I'm Padma because I miss her too. And he's willing to give anything and I need all he has to give. I let him say her name instead of mine, sometimes, and he lets me cry, sometimes. I let him tell me I'm beautiful because that's all I need, someone to love unconditionally as only a mother can, as only a sister can. And he's beautiful, as is grief, in ways I still don't understand and sometimes think is sick. His hot tears are beautiful and tug at my heart, and it's nice to not feel completely alone.  
But that illusion shatters the moment after it is realized, like the Great Hall's stained glass windows caved in and poured like a sparkling waterfall of destruction.

And now I understand when they say war is beautiful. The grief is raging and gentle and hideous and beautiful.

How?


	11. Rose

**Rose**

Tell me why prejudices will never die.

And maybe why I can't help but fall in love with a Slytherin, though I'd rather an answer to the first. They're fine, really. Just smart in a clever sort of tricky way, and when there's no evil dark homicidal maniac terrorizing everyone, including, yes, Slytherins themselves, they're just the same as the rest of us. Most of them never asked to be on that side of the war anyways. Most of them were scared out of their wits as well.

Love, really - well, I'm not so sure about the _love_ bit, but his smile makes me go all funny and I'd do anything to talk to him. Purposely tried to get detention again with him, but that seemed to be a fluke for him, although when I see him around he still smiles at me.

Think about him all the time. He's perfect, I find myself thinking, then tell myself I'm stupid, because there's no way he's perfect. I hardly know him, and that's why he's perfect, because he's all in my head.

Makes me feel all funny. Can't think straight for the next hour. Jittery, like caffeine.

Anyways, I'm still wondering why these bloody prejudices and judgments can't just _end_. Wasn't that the point of the war? To gain freedom and choice for _everyone_? What if they don't want to choose to be all Gryffindor? They can't all fit in the dorms anyways, and getting rid of one of the houses - we'd be no better than them.

And we aren't. Father - can't you not scowl and mutter under your breath at Slytherins at the station? Mother - say something! And Harry, you fought this damn war - you of all people should know what it was for.

I'd like to bring him home - you know, if I ever got up the courage to ask him to Hogsmeade or something. I'd love for you to welcome him (or anyone else) into the family - you know, if we ended up married or something.

Just saying.

Of course, I'd have to talk to him first.

What if I'd been sorted into Slytherin? Would you have disowned me, like Harry tells me what happened to Sirius? And we scoff at the Blacks and their evil, insane tendancies, while you'd do the same, maybe.

Makes me sick. Makes me not want to be in Gryffindor. I try to talk to them, to make friends with them, but most of them laugh at me (don't even take it seriously) and even teachers smile sort of patronizingly.

Makes me sick. They're turning out prejudice back to us, laugh at us when we try to not be like you.

I love you, all of you, mum and dad and Harry and Ginny and all my aunts and uncles and grandparents and family, but sometimes I don't respect you, admire you, at all.

Sometimes, as Bill told me one time when I asked about his scars, you just have to suck it up and deal with it.


	12. Ernie

**Ernie**

Tell me why you're gone.

I miss you so much. Yes, there's Hannah, and Susan, and Wayne and Michael and Neville and yes yes yes...

But I miss you, Justin. Something reminds me of a joke we used to have and I _turn_, looking around for you, before remembering that you're not here.

I can picture you in your house (manor house?), with your wand stashed away, lighting lights with electricity and cooking slowly and using all those Muggle contraptions, and when you go to school, learning all those things you told us about - chemistry and math and physics and writing and history.

Would you write me, and tell me about blowing up the lab with chemicals instead of misused spells?

Would you write me, tell me what it's like, not having house elves, what it's like, not living next to the kitchens, what it's like, reading to electric light instead of the firelight, what it's like, writing your essays on Shakespeare, not Potions, what it's like, studying history of wars with guns and cannons and not Goblins and ancient wizards, what it's like, not being Cruciated every time you open your mouth?

Would you write me, and risk using magical coding quills, even though you're all but renouncing your magic and living like a Muggle? Just don't ask, and you won't be hurt.

Would you come, for the battle?

Don't look surprised - you knew it would come to this. Because how can I miss you and hate you and want you to stay gone, to stay safe, at the same time? Don't look surprised - you always knew it would come to this. Ever since the snake and Voldemort (I can say it now - you would too, because we've faced worse than a name by now) and Cedric. Don't look surprised - you always knew it would come to this.

I was wondering what you did with your owl. She was the most beautiful thing - turned heads when she came flying in at breakfast with your letters and packages. Where is she? You couldn't keep her - she'd draw far too much attention to a house that's supposed to belong to a family of extremely well-off Muggles.

There's always this _wrongness_, this nagging fear, when I think of you. Your house is protected by fences, not charms. A careless _Alohamora_ is all it will take to reach you.

Your wand stuffed down among your old shirts, hidden in the back of a dresser you've probably forgotten all about. How long would it take you, to get it, if someone came for you? How long would it take you to think up the spells to use to save yourself, after almost a year of no practicing magic?

Hannah cries, sometimes. She never used to cry. All I can do is hold her and feel utterly useless. She misses you, I can tell.

_Hannah's crying. _She tries to pretend like it's not tearing her up inside but she worries more than my mother and it's hopeless._  
_

Justin.

_What are we doing?_


End file.
